Venezuela #4: Butterflies and lightning

Pic from cocolight.com

While SQ and I were observing Jupiter, Clar, Ivan, Lennon and Adrian were making their way from their Angel Falls trip to Merida. They arrived slightly traumatized by the trip (hammocks, and Adrian was given only spaghetti for food since he didn't eat the beef in the bolognese sauce).

The next day, we set off for Lake Maracaibo with our guide Alan Highton, to look for the Catatumbo Lightning. Prevailing winds blow moisture rich air from the sea across Lake Maracaibo, then is forced to rise over the mountains surrounding the lake. The resulting turbulence results in lightning storms ~300 days/year. Read about it on wikipedia, or watch an ABC special about the lightning's mysterious disappearance in 2010. Alan has made a career out of capturing the beauty of the lightning, and leading tours around the region.

However, even the trip to Maracaibo was interesting. We started with buying supplies at the local market (which had Huge Avocados). And stopped by a cane sugar factory, and a coffee plantation.

Live chickens at the market

Next, motor boat down river and across the lake. Alan is an amazing wildlife spotter. In the two days, we saw howler monkeys, longtailed flycatchers, pelicans, herons, egrets, ospreys, snail kites, river dolphins (a big pod! ~30 of them, but they avoided the boats), and his specialty: butterflies. Alan has described and named 2 new blue morpho butterfly species. Brilliant blue on top and boring brown underneath makes it really confusing for would-be-predators as the butterfly goes in search of nectar and fruit. Alan sets baits: mesh socks full of rotting bananas, tied around low hanging branches. Glamorously named the 'scrotum method', this baiting technique was enthusiastically described and demonstrated. The next day, we found a collection of moths and butterflies feeding at the baits. Moths rest with their wings apart; butterflies with their wings closed.

"two-headed" butterfly fools predators

Dinner was very tasty grilled chicken and beef, supplemented by fresh catfish caught by us, Alan, and his assistant. Night was spent in hammocks on an outdoor platform above the lake-- Alan demonstrated the proper hammock technique of lying diagonally across in order to avoid bowing one's back. Unfortunately, it was the dry season-- not a good time for lightning. No lightning the entire night!?!! Kinda disappointed.

Blue Morpho!

We get a quick tour of the floating village of Congo on our way back to Merida. It's fairly large. 700 families. The most wealthy one runs the provision store, and their house was very nice, with tiled floors, and 3 massive boom-boxes outside.

That night was Christmas Eve. We spent it back in Posada Suiza (the real one!), with a large collection of fireworks. I didn't realize that SQ is such a fireworks fan. He bought ~$60USD worth of fireworks! Our proud collection consisted of: 12 big bombs with launcher; small ones that spun up and whee-ed; small rockets that flew up, then gave off a little spark; mini volcanoes (very satisfying).